President Bush will call tonight for an unprecedented federal commitment to rebuild New Orleans and other areas obliterated by Hurricane Katrina, putting the United States on pace to spend more in the next year on the storm's aftermath than it has over three years on the Iraq war, according to White House and congressional officials.
With the federal tab for Katrina already nearly quadruple the cost of the country's previous most expensive natural disaster cleanup, Bush plans to offer federal assistance to help flood victims find jobs, get housing and health care, and attend school, according to White House aides.
This all has to be done, but other choices made in the past years mean this is not something we can easily pay for, and some on the right are still demanding another tax cut for millionaires.
Katrina means long-planned Republican tax cuts will be delayed -- but not abandoned. Lawmakers say Congress is using the time to concentrate on post-Katrina recovery and reconstruction. U-S House Majority Leader Tom DeLay says there's plenty of time to do everything that they want to do.
In other words, wait until we are not paying close attention and then give all the promised goodies to the rich.
Of course, while this storm may, in time, cost more that the war in Iraq, the cost of that mistake is going to continue to cost us hundred of billions, if the president doesn't find a new path (and he wont, since he refuses to consider even looking for one).
-- Two suicide car bombers struck back-to-back just half a mile apart in the Iraqi capital Thursday after another bombing hours earlier in the same neighborhood, bringing the day's death toll to at least 31 people in another day of deadly violence in Baghdad, according to Iraqi police.
The three bombings in Baghdad's southern Dora neighborhood killed at least 23 Iraqi policemen and eight civilians and wounded at least twenty others, according to the Associated Press
Just run up the debt, maybe the great grand kids will enjoy the abject poverty of the nation.
3 comments:
Just think, if our grandkids live in a nation that's poor enough, some of the world's superpowers like China and India could send them aid. Or Doctors Without Borders. (Oh, wait, they are already here in the Appalachia region).
One thing that's not noted: There's one sure-fired way for the nation to get out of debt. And that's to start up the printing presses. Inflate the currency enough, and you can pay off a billion dollars of debt with a million dollars worth of money.
Of course, inflation of this sort has its own downsides. For one thing, it trashes liquidity. People do not want to keep their assets in the form of dollar-denominated funds (e.g. in a bank) because then their money swiftly declines in value. Secondly, it causes the cost of money for the Treasury to increase dramatically -- in order to get people to invest in Treasuries, they must pay astoundingly high sums of money. Finally, it trashes the Social Security trust fund. Because the trust fund consists of fixed-interest bonds, it would dramatically decrease in value, thereby imperilling the retirements of millions of Americans. And finally, it drives up the price of imports dramatically. People don't want dollars in exchange for their goods if the dollars are going to decline rapidly in value before they get the chance to invest said dollars into some asset that will appreciate at the rate of inflation.
Still, given a choice between national bankruptcy and printing money, we know what choice will be made -- there is ample precedent, after all. Think LBJ and Richard Nixon, both of whom printed money like crazy to pay for an unpopular war and popular social programs...
- Badtux the Economist Penguin
Well said badtux
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